Star Trek 2. The wrath of Kahn

This second movie came out in 1982. We meet the crew of TOS again but now Kirk is an admiral with no more active duty. A legend at Starfleet, he has made a career only to find himself growing old in a position he doesn’t enjoy. But fate smiles upon Kirk and his crew when they join a training run of the Enterprise which very fast turns into a dangerous duel with Kahn. Kahn is hellbent on revenge against Kirk who he blames for years of exile on a hostile planet. Not only does he want revenge, he also wants to prove he is a superior mind by defeating Kirk in battle. It has all the ingredients of a better TOS episode but then elaborated into a motion picture length. Luckily it isn’t as drawn out as the first movie and there is more going on making it a lot more enjoyable. It is a quite traditional sci-fi action movie in the Star Trek universe. That makes that you can watch it more than once and still enjoy it during a second viewing. On the positive side there is suspense thanks to the deadly threat that the Enterprise has to face, there is the action from the battle with Kahn that cannot be won simply by use of brute force but requires strategy and there are all the emotional ‘dilemmas’ the crew has to face. In this movie Kirk finds out he has a son that doesn’t like him very much. You could say that on some level this movie is a drama about a man that became addicted to the fame of professional success. He struggles with accepting that old age has to make room for youth, all the more so as he dedicated his life only to work and has nothing outside of it. Of course, this is only a small part of the movie but there is a bit more than just photon torpedos and explosions in space. This movie is very typical Star Trek where there is always the challenge to face but the way to overcome it relies more on reasoning and psychology than on brute force and violence. On the negative side I find the theatrical speech Kahn uses to illustrate his superior intellect silly. Still, from the movies entered around the crew from TOS I find this one of the better ones.